Hide and Seek
by MelodyPnd
Summary: "What's that, in the mirror, in the corner of your eye..." - When fear plays hide and seek with the meander of your mind... Can the Doctor always find what is not quite right?
1. Hide and Seek Part I

**/!\ PLEASE READ AUTHOR NOTE /!\**

 **Hello dear readers!** **  
**

 **Here I come with a new story! This is a little unusual though and different from what I usually do: this is my exam for my Uni Short Story Writing class and it's due on the December 7th! So I thought I'd upload it here to have feeback before I hand it out to modify it if necessary :)**

 **(So now my dear readers that follow my other fic "Time and Space" you see why I haven't updated much lately: lot of Uni work to do! To my new readers who don't know about "Time and Space" you can check it out it's under my profile :) )**

 **And this is where _you_ come in: I need your opinion on this story to help me have a good grade on it! Whether it's by reviewing or PMing me, please tell me what you think of it! :)**

 **So as I said it is a short story, know that we have worked on the Gothic genre throughout the semester, so it fits in this genre. It will be in 3 parts.  
It's not supposed to feature The Doctor in this story but I decided to make a version with the Doctor to post it here and have feedback (anything to have a good grade and ace the semester eh ^^).  
** **It is however a mash-up of many episodes of Doctor Who that inspired me when I created my plot line so of course credit goes to BBC, I don't own Doctor Who but I do own the story I've made out of it and River Ravenwood, my OC.**

 **Now I'll stop talking and will let you get on with the story!**

 **Enjoy!**

 **Melody - x**

* * *

 **Hide And Seek**

 _What's that, in the mirror,_

 _In the corner of your eye,_

 _What's that footstep following,_

 _But never passing by._

 _Perhaps they're all just waiting,_

 _Perhaps when we're all dead,_

 _Out they'll come a-slithering,_

 _From underneath the bed._

 _\- Steven Moffat_

* * *

The snow was blowing over London, the clouds, thick and dark, hiding the stars that should have shone this night. It was very cold, and sooner or later, the snowflakes were going to bury the city under its thick white cloak.

It was so cold that there was almost no one to be seen on the streets, and if someone happened to cross the road they would just walk as fast as they could to reach their warm and comfortable destination.

"Did you make this snowman?"

"No." said the man in a top hat passing by the street only lit by the street lamps without even glancing at the young woman.

"Because it wasn't there a second ago, it just appeared… from nowhere."

The man stopped and slowly turned around to look at that young woman in her teal Victorian dress. He walked up to her, taking out round glasses and looking at the snowman, his feet creaking on the thin layer of snow on the ground.

"Maybe the snow remembers how to make snowmen… or maybe you don't remember someone doing it." he said, looking closely at the snow.

She glanced at him, looking at his appearance: tight and elegant Victorian suit, brown hair, green eyes and a face that looked young and old at the same time. He was handsome, she thought.

"What? Snow that remembers? That's silly." she said.

"What's wrong with silly?"

"Nothing, still talking to you, ain't I?"

A teasing smile stretched her lips and he gave her an amused smile in return.

"What's your name?" he asked while putting his glasses back in his pocket.

"River."

"That's a nice name." he said as he started to walk away. "You should definitely keep it!"

She looked behind her and her eyes widened before she turned back to the man:

"Oi!" she called. She frowned a bit, as though she had forgotten what she was about to say before she said something else instead: "Where're you going? After we were just getting acquainted."

He turned back to face her with a soft and, somehow, nostalgic smile.

"Those were the days…"

As he went on, a tingling sensation at the back of his neck created an uneasy feeling. He lowered the pace to stop a few steps further.

There was something wrong, something not quite right.

He looked over his shoulder and a few seconds later ran to the girl: she had collapsed on the floor, unconscious, with no apparent reason. He lifted her, looking around the dark street, narrowing his eyes trying to see if the cause of her collapse was hidden in the shadows. Finding nothing, he walked away carrying her until he reached a black brougham carriage. With the help of his coach driver, he put her inside and climbed inside with her.

"To the manor." he said to the coach driver.

"Sir."

And the carriage disappeared in the foggy streets of London.

* * *

Cold.

It was the first thing that came to her.

She looked around, her vision blurred. No matter how much she tried to blink to chase the fog away from her eyes, the world around her would still be fuzzy and dizzy. She could only discern the shapes of other beds while herself seemed to be lying in one as well, the gloomy and grey atmosphere of the large room around her infiltrating her body, slowly and viciously.

Whispers and a swishing sound were running up above and down below, contrasting with the oppressive silence around: no wind, no rain, no owl or no fox to be heard.

Just whispers.

Just the swish.

Suddenly, the cold sensation converged to her right ankle, pressing against her bare skin as her heart skipped a beat, fear making an ice-cold hand clench around the vital organ pumping life in her veins.

Her already troubled vision slowly became shrouded with darkness, drowning her in a black, motionless and timeless world: the void.

* * *

Warmth.

It was the first thing that came to her.

Out of the pitch black void of unconsciousness, she opened her heavy eyelids to a place she did not recognize.

A richly decorated room with warm exotic wood, a fireplace lit and tea ready to be served on the side table was surrounding her, bathing in the winter morning light.

She sat up on the sofa she was lying on, making the cover that had been thrown over her slip to the dark red carpet on the floor. As she was trying to remember what had happened, the door opened and the man she had met the night before entered.

"Oh you're up. Good." he said with a smile before sitting down on a seat across the small table. "Would you care for some tea?"

She nodded a yes, quite lost regarding the situation. She took the cup he was handing her and after she took a sip, she finally asked:

"Who are you?"

"I'm the Doctor." he said calmly. "You are at the Paternoster Manor, home of the Paternoster Gang, a group of people investigating… _things_ that happen in London and around."

"What, like murders and crime scenes? Like the police?"

"A little bit more than that. We also investigate strange phenomena and supernatural events but yes, I suppose you could say that we also investigate murders. We help Scotland Yard after all, though this is more Mr. Holmes' business."

"Holmes you said? Like Sherlock Holmes?" she asked. As he nodded, she got up with a bitter laugh. "I may be just a young girl, sweet little River, but I'm not stupid. I read The Strand magazine as much as the next chap here and I know Sherlock Holmes is only a fictional character!"

"Is he? I beg to differ." he simply said, being his gentleman self, though a smirk was coming across his lips, as though he was a child who just pulled a prank on someone. "Sit down please, we need to talk about last night. Don't you want to know what happened to you...?"

She hesitated for a second but decided to listen and she sat down.

"I don't remember anything after you said 'those were the days'..." she said.

"There was no one in that street except for you and me, and I asked Strax, our… nurse, to do a general medical examination on you and he found nothing that could be the cause of your loss of consciousness. Just a little concussion. Might have been because you fell… Or because of something else..."

"What do you mean?"

"Have you ever wondered…" he started, leaning in. "If you've ever been really alone?"

She frowned a little, not sure about the meaning of that. He got up and walked around with his cup of tea, moving with ease and elegance. He leant against the mantel of the fireplace and went on:

"Question. Why do we talk out loud when we know we're alone? Conjecture. Because we know we aren't." he said, leaving the cup on the mantel.

He walked around, River following him with her green eyes, absorbed by his theory.

"Evolution perfects survival skills. There are perfect hunters, there is perfect defence." he continued, picking up a chalk on a cupboard and writing the word 'Question' on a blackboard she had not noticed until now. "Question." he said again, leaving the chalk in in the crook between the two halves of an open book. "Why is there no such thing as perfect hiding? Answer. How would you know?"

He walked up to her as she was standing up, starting to get his point, her gaze still following the man.

"Logically, if evolution were to perfect a creature whose primary skill were to hide from view, how could you know it existed? It could be with us every second and we would never know. How would you detect it, even sense it, except in those moments when, for no clear reason you choose to speak aloud? What would such a creature want? What would it do? Well... What would you do?" he said as they both looked at each other, facing each other.

A slight rattle was heard to their left, where the blackboard was. His eyes sparkled with excitement when hers were anxious as they both slowly turned their gaze toward the board.

The chalk was no longer in the book. It was rolling on the wooden floor.

They looked up to the board. Something new was written.

"LISTEN"

* * *

 **I hope you liked it, tell me please what you think (PM or review, I don't mind) so I can make it better! :)**


	2. Hide and Seek Part II

**Hello my dear readers, I'm back after few more exams to give you the second part of my short story!**

 **I hope you like it, if you think that some things could be better do not hesitate to tell me. Again I repeat: this is Uni work, I'm not asking for reviews just to have a high number of reviews (you can share your opinion by PM if you want) but really to try and have a good grade as this is an exam I am supposed to hand on December 7th.**

 **Enjoy! :)**

 **Melody - x.**

* * *

 _Part II_

"What's all this?" she asked.

The Doctor had led her to the library of the manor where books were strewn over the tables.

"Dreams. Accounts of dreams, by different people, all throughout history. Schwarze Mann, Germany. Ulmo Nero, Italy. Baboulas, Greece. Or the Baudas, Lithuania. Monsters under the bed based on these dreams all around the world. You see, I have a theory."

"I bet you have." she said, starting to understand the kind of person he was: brilliant, and a little bit of a mad man.

"Proposition. What if no one is ever really alone? What if every single living being has a companion, a silent passenger, a shadow? What if the prickle on the back of your neck, is the breath of something close behind you? I think everybody, at some point in their lives, has the exact same nightmare. You wake up, or you think you do, and there's someone in the dark, someone close, or you think there might be."

River frowned a bit as she thought back to the most terrifying nightmares she had, a cold chill running up her spine. He faced her and continued with a lower voice, almost a whisper, the library not feeling as safe a place anymore:

"So you sit up, and light up the lamp. And the room looks different at night. It ticks and creaks and breathes… And you tell yourself there's nobody there, nobody watching, nobody listening, nobody there at all. And you very nearly believe it. You really, really try, and then… A hand reaches out from under the bed and grabs your ankle."

In a quick flash, the memory of the dream, the gloomy room and the cold sensation around her ankle came back to her and she looked back at him, a hint of fear in her eyes. How was that possible? What if he was right? What if there was really something hiding in the shadows?

"There are accounts of that dream everywhere and everywhen. Time and time again, the exact same one. Now, a very obvious question, do you know what it is?"

"Have you had that dream?"

He smiled, that girl was smart. And pretty. He liked that. He did not expected otherwise from someone bearing the same name as River Song.

"Exactly."

"No, that was me asking you." she said. "Have you had that dream?"

"I asked first."

"No, I did."

"You really didn't."

She looked at him defiantly for a second, but she gave in:

"Okay, yes, probably, but everyone dreams about something under the bed."

"Why?"

She opened her mouth to answer but truth was that in fact, she did not know. Why indeed? Why everyone shares the same exact dream at one point in their lives if it was not for one reason, one simple, but terrifying reason: that something was hiding under the bed.

"No matter how many times you looked under your bed, you found nothing but a lonely sock or a misplaced earring. But maybe there was more…"

Looking at him with her wide and terrified eyes, she asked with a trembling voice:

"How are we going to prove that?"

"By going back in time! Well, kind of. Well, not really. Well… not at all in fact, it's much less timey-wimey than that to be honest."

Timey-what?

Seeing he had lost her, he said:

"Do you remember where you grew up…?"

* * *

Everything was grey.

The sky was grey, filled with grey clouds. The naked trees were grey and so were the dead leaves in the dried grass on the grey and dusty ground.

A fence was circling up the domain.

River looked up and what she saw froze her: hundreds and hundreds of grey and black birds, pigeons and ravens on the roof and branches, their excreta covering the tiles and cracked walls adding more grey and misery to the place.

"I'm sorry." the Doctor started as he looked up at the metal banner above the gate where could be read 'Honorhall Orphanage'. "I didn't know this was where you grew up, if I had known I wouldn't have asked-"

"It's okay." she cut him off.

He looked at her, her fiery red hair contrasting with the dullness of the landscape around them. She was nice to be around, young and fresh as a flower, brilliant and brave.

 _Aren't they all?_ He thought, looking back into his past. How many times did he found brilliant companions… to only lose them, leading them by the hand to their own death when fighting evil aliens. But not this time. He did not want to lose her, not her.

As she looked back at him, she could perceive a hint of worry in his eyes and smiled to prove to him she was alright. He took her hand in his in a gentlemanly way and tilting his head, he asked:

"Shall we?"

She nodded and they both crossed the gate and walked up to the heavy wooden front door. He stretched out his hand and lifted the massive, goblin-shaped door knocker, producing a loud thud that echoed behind the wooden panel as it fell back.

After a moment, the heavy door opened, revealing a little bald man, looking lost.

"Yes?" he said with a tired voice.

The Doctor took out his wallet from his inside pocket and showed it to him.

"Scotland Yard." he said. "We're here to investigate and make sure everything is alright. Don't worry, it's just a routine."

The man looked behind the wooden panel as though someone was talking to him and turning back to them he just nodded and let them in. No one else was to be seen.

"Psychic paper." the Doctor whispered to River with a wink. "What is your name?" he asked louder to the man.

"Mr. Black." the man answered. "My office is this way."

He looked completely lost. How could that man run this orphanage?

The place looked abandoned: dust everywhere, not a child to see and above everything else, the walls were tagged. Every wall had a marking on it, with a red paint that looked like blood dripping on these grey and cracked walls.

'GET OUT'

'LEAVE'

"Sorry for the markings." Black said waving at the markings. "You know, the children…"

"Where are the children?" asked the Doctor as him and River exchanged a worried look.

"They're upstairs." he said. "My office is this way, this way…" he repeated.

As they reached the first storey of the building, River looked at the corridors facing the man's office. She leant in to whisper in the Doctor's ear:

"I'm going to look that way, see if I can find the children."

"Be careful." he whispered back, looking straight into her green eyes, serious.

She stayed there, motionless for a second, surprised by his concern before slightly smiling, nodding a yes to him and head into the corridor.

She started to walk down the corridor, but she couldn't hear the children. At the end of it was a door, she rested her hand on the doorknob and slowly opened it, making it creak sinisterly.

Like in a dream, she remembered the room she had in front of her. The big grey and gloomy dormitory with maybe ten bed on each side.

But still no children to see.

She closed the door behind her and leant in to look under a bed.

Nothing.

She sighed remembering the Doctor's words: "Maybe there was more". And she slipped under the bed high enough to let her and her bustle pass comfortably.

Looking around her there was nothing. She touched the springs and the mattress above her: nothing special.

The mattress sank in.

* * *

 **Again do not hesitate to tell me how I could make it better, I take constructive criticism very well :) I hope you like it so far :)**


	3. Hide and Seek Part III

**Hello dear readers! Here comes the last part of Hide and Seek! I hope you liked it, let me know what you thought about it, keep in mind it's Uni work at first. If you like it, I might rewrite it one day to do something longer and more faithful to the show :)**

 **Enjoy!**

 **Melody - x.**

* * *

"Mr. Black, how long have you been in charge of this orphanage?" the Doctor asked the man.

"Oh, about twenty-five years I suppose." he said. His voice sounded weak, tired. "After a while, you lose count." he added, trying to make a joke.

Looking around the room, the Time Lord noticed the dust on the shelves, the papers that had become brown as time went by. It was only five in the afternoon, but the sky filled with cloud was already painted in dark grey hues, threatening.

Mr. Black lit up his lamp and sat at his desk as the Doctor spoke up again:

"Do you have any file concerning Miss River Ravenwood? She grew up here."

"Yes, most certainly, i-it must be in the cupboard, just right here." the man answered, pointing his finger toward the cupboard the Doctor was leaning against.

"You don't remember her?" he asked as he knelt to the drawer at the bottom classing the files from "R" to "U".

"No I…" he stopped, his mind seeming to wander. "So many children grew up here, I don't remember them."

 _Weird…_ the Doctor thought as he skipped the front - more recent - files, knowing he had to go more than twenty years back. After a few minutes, he finally found her file and opened it: everything seemed to be in order, except… Except for her mental health report.

"Night terrors."

He randomly took another file within the same period: "Night terrors."

Another: "Night terrors."

He took the most recent file of the drawer: "Night terrors."

Suddenly, as he was comparing it with a file from another drawer, something caught his eyes.

The dates.

According to the most recent files, all the children left the orphanage… five years ago.

* * *

She gasped.

She looked at her left and her right, but she couldn't see any foot hanging from above. Turning her eyes towards the door, they widened. The door was still closed and it was an old door, it creaked when she opened it, no one could have entered without making it creak and certainly not a child.

After staying under the bed for while, thinking, fear making her heart race in her chest, she decided to slip out of under the bed. Maybe she did not pay attention, maybe it was just a child after all.

Stepping back, she saw the shape of someone or something sitting on the bed, hiding under a red crochet cover.

"Hello?" she said, trying to sound nice as it seemed like it was a child.

No answer.

"Sorry, I didn't know that was your bed, I was just looking at something. You know, I grew up here too." she said, stepping closer from the shape. "Pulling a prank on me eh?" she continued, stretching her hand toward the cover to try and pull it away to see who was hiding underneath.

But as she was inches away only, the shape grew, becoming taller and taller, only stopping when the cover was about to not touch the mattress anymore.

River, her eyes wide, backed away, her heart pounding in her chest: this was not a child.

She ran to the door. She had to go and warn the Doctor that there was something else here with them. As she reached the door, she managed to open it… to face a wall.

"What…"

She touched it, hit it but no matter how impossible this was, there was a wall behind the door she had come in by that was not there before.

"Doctor! Doctor!" she shouted as she was hitting the wall, fear crawling under her skin. She dared to look behind her at the shape on the bed.

Nothing.

The was nothing, the red crochet cover was just on the grey mattress, nothing hiding under it, and no one else to be seen in the dormitory.

As she looked round the room, she noticed curtains.

River ran towards them and pulled them away, maybe she would be able to go out by the window.

No window.

Just a wall.

Trying desperately to find a way out in this place that used to be her home, she looked up at the ceiling and her eyes widened. She was about to scream but suddenly a creaking cut her off.

She blinked as she looked at the door at the other end of the room, slowly opening… to a dark corridor only lit by the lightnings that were tearing the skies apart.

River slowly stepped out of the dormitory and walked down the corridor. As she came across another door, she opened it to reveal a single-bedded room, the ones that were given to the eldest children.

This room… old and dusty…

She looked at the cupboard on which was resting a few black and white pictures in metal frames, turning her back from the bed. On them, a little girl in the orphanage backyard, on the front steps… and another one, with a young female, smiling and holding a newborn baby.

With a trembling hand, she took the frame and looked at the picture.

"But that's… That's me…" she stammered out, not understanding. It was as though this place had not changed since she left, as if no other child got this room after her. It was still, like frozen in time since she left. "Why…?" she whimpered, panic making her voice crack and her breath shorten.

A shadow growing on the floor coming from behind her made her jump around and the most frightened scream escaped her lips, from the bottom of her lungs, from the bottom of her primal fear.

* * *

A terrible scream echoed in the corridor up to Mr. Black's office, making him and the Doctor turn their heads toward the door and their hair rise on their necks.

"River…!" the Doctor let out as he rushed out of the office toward the source of the scream.

He stopped in front of the door, tried to open it but it was locked down. He took out his sonic screwdriver to unlock it as he was calling her name.

"Doctor!" she screamed, her voice filled with terror. And after that, the silence.

"River?" he called.

But silence fell when the question was asked.

The door opened, creaking, to let him see inside.

A room with its window opened to the thundering night, rain pouring down as the storm raged on.

A figure was standing on the rim of the window, facing him: River, her skin as pale as the snow.

"River… What are you doing? Please come down and talk, please…" he pleaded her, offering his hand so she could come down.

Not her, please not her.

"We should never have come here." she said, her green eyes lost in the vague, contained tears making them glimmer in the darkness of the room.

"What happened? Tell me, talk to me."

"It's here. It's in my head. It's everywhere…" she said painfully. "It has me, it'll let you go. Get out."

"I'm not leaving you! What is in your head, tell me, I can help you River but you've got to tell me…" the Doctor insisted, his voice starting to tremble.

"Stop looking for it. It doesn't want to be seen." she said, her voice sounding dull and her eyes still lost. "I am saving you. Get out, don't go looking for it and it'll leave you."

"Why?"

"Because once you've seen it, it's not safe."

"Seen what?" he asked, trying desperately to know more to try and find a way to bring her back.

"Death."

As she said the word, his blood froze in his veins.

"Death awaits for those who have seen it. And you have no other choice but to face the Raven."

"Let me save you. Please, let me save you." he said, making a step toward her.

Suddenly, her eyes moved. Not lost in the vague anymore, they laid upon him, the contained tears rolling down on her cheeks and shining at the light of a lightning, like diamonds.

"Run you clever boy…" she started in a trembling whisper. "And remember me…"

"I can save you, let me save you! Please!" he begged, his voice cracking and his hearts racing.

"Let me be brave…" she whispered as she looked back in the vague, as though she could see something that no one else could see. "Let me be brave…"

And suddenly, a strong and ice-cold wind coming from behind him hit her, and she fell.

River fell. She fell just as silence fell in the Doctor's ears. A deafening silence, the silence of death.

The world was still running around him, rain now pouring over the orphanage, the drops hitting the windows before rolling down, just like tears. But for him, at this very moment, everything slowed down, everything stopped, just like his hearts, just like her heart.

He shouted, yelled and fought, thunder and lightnings tearing the skies apart but nothing would get to his ears and tears streaming down his face. But it was as though nothing was coming out of his lips.

She hit the ground, her body lifeless.

He wanted to run to her, to take her away from the chaos around her, he wanted to bring her back, by all and any means.

Maybe she was still… If he could take her inside and… It was not that high… Maybe… With the Tardis… Maybe she was not tough enough.

Reality destroyed his illusions as a lightning bolt pierced the thick clouds, the cracking thunder making the windows vibrate. He ran down to her and carried her inside and stayed there on the dusty ground, holding her tight against him and cradling her.

If she was still alive, she would have moved by now.

The soaked windows only let him see the storm rumble high in the clouds, leaving the domain and its forest in a pitch black and dreadful darkness.

Mr. Black was nowhere to be seen. And the Doctor did not care.

She was so young. She needed him to understand, he needed her to solve the mystery, but in the end, "it" won.

Was there something under the bed? Was there something at all? Or did this place drove her mad?

He looked around him, at the grey and dirty walls dripping with red paint that were telling him to get out.

" _Get out."_ he remembered her saying with her crystalline voice.

A flashing light that lit the wall before him revealed a new marking.

"FACE THE RAVEN"

She had night terrors.

She was so young…

The storm had calmed down now. Only the rain was softly running down the windows, just as though the skies were crying, mourning her loss. His hearts were wrenched, bleeding, pierced from one side to the other, torn apart... Broken.

He was broken.

How many tears did he cry?

A river.

* * *

In the darkness of his office only lit by the moonlight, the Doctor, sat in a seat, was sipping a cup of tea.

He looked up at the blackboard in front of him.

"LISTEN"

She said he had to stop looking for a proof of the existence of an invisible creature. He could have done as he was told, if she was still there.

But she was not.

Question.

What if there was something hiding in the shadows? In your own shadow? What if there were creatures, waiting for us to make a mistake, the mistake to see them, to feed on us. On our fear.

Creatures that would push you, lead you by the hand to your own death.

Despite the darkness shrouding the room, a dark aura was emanating from him as he was deep in his thoughts, looking down at his glass.

Suddenly, a rattle was heard on the wooden floor.

He looked up, his dark green eyes meeting the blackboard.

"FACE THE RAVEN"

* * *

" _I blew into this world on a raven quill… I'm still blowing… "_

The End.

* * *

 **Let me know what you thought about it :) Remember it's Uni work**


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